Dane turns my face slightly toward him and kisses me. Slow. Warm. No urgency behind it at all. The kind of kiss that exists just to exist.
“This time next year?—”
“Don’t,” I say quietly.
He ignores me.
“This time next year we’ll be somewhere with walls. Real walls.”
I close my eyes, but I don’t stop him again. I let him say it. Let him believe it. Let the moment stay whole exactly as it is—his arms around me, his warmth at my back, the ocean stretched out endlessly in front of us.
For a second, everything feels complete.
Then something shifts low in my abdomen.
Small enough that I almost dismiss it. More a flicker than a sensation. Something easy to explain away if I wanted to.
But I still, without thinking, my focus turning sharply inward as I wait for it again.
And when it comes back, I know I didn’t imagine it.
“Charlotte?” Something changes in Dane’s voice instantly. His arms tighten slightly around me. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t answer right away. My hand’s already pressed flat against my stomach, searching for whatever I just felt.
It isn’t pain. It isn’t the dull pressure I’ve been living with for weeks now. This feels different.
There’s movement in it. Something that doesn’t feel like me.
“I don’t know. I think I need to lie down.”
He moves immediately. “Here or the shelter?”
“Here.” I swallow hard, trying to make sense of the feeling still echoing through me.
He helps me down carefully, one hand steady at my arm, already beside me by the time I lie back against the sand.
I stare up at the sky, trying to steady my breathing, but I can feel it again beneath my hand. Beneath everything I thought I understood about what was happening inside me.
The thing I’ve been calling a mass is visible now—a slight curve low in my abdomen. I’ve spent weeks hiding it, adjusting how I move, how I stand, trying to keep Dane from realizing how quickly this was getting worse.
Now he sees it.
“Charlotte.”
Everything he doesn’t say is inside my name.
“Wait,” I tell him quickly.
He stills immediately, one hand hovering close to me without touching.
I keep my palm pressed low against my stomach and focus entirely on the feeling inside me, shutting everything else out.
I breathe slowly. Wait.
Then it happens again, clearer this time.
Not pressure. Not pain.
